What's a good reason to change? Motivated reasoning and social accounts in promoting organizational change.

Abstract

This study provides support for social accounts theory and motivated reasoning theory, both of which help explain how employees interpret the reasons that organizations undertake change. In a field study of a hospital implementing empowerment among nurses, staff nurses (n = 501) cited 3 types of reasons as motivating the change: economic, quality improvement, and self-serving or political reasons. (The formal, managerially stated reason for the change was quality improvement.) Results generally supported social accounts theory regarding the managerial explanation. In this setting, however, many nurses did not believe the explanation management offered. Their alternative interpretations of the change were investigated from the perspective of motivated reasoning. Findings indicated that nurses' trust in management, their psychological contracts with the hospital, and the beliefs of their coworkers affected the reasons nurses cited for the change. We want to care for patients not paper. Nurses are able to share in their own future. Added responsibility without monetary reimbursement. —Three contrasting views of the same restructuring Downsizing and restructuring have brought about radical changes in employment relationships worldwide (Kanter, 1989). These events are blamed for increased employee stress and dissatisfaction (Mirvis & Hall, 1994) and, when poorly implemented, for reduced performance and commitment and increased perceptions of injustice (Novelli, Kirkman, & Shapiro, 1995; Schneider & Bowen, 1995). Global competition, cost pressures, innovations in information technology, and rising customer expectations are seen to

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